Give me the long, straight road before me,
A clear, cold day with a nipping air,
Tall, bare trees to run on beside-me,

A heart that is light and free from care.
Then let me go!-I care not whither

My feet may lead, for my spirit shall be
Free as the brook that flows to the river,

Free as the river that flows to the sea.

Olive Runner

SUNRISE

SUNRISE AT SANTA BARBARA

The sea hides its curious heart

Under a bridal robe of mother-o'-pearl,
Mother-o'-pearl flushed with rose,

Waiting.

Against a turquoise sky

The mountains kneel, mauve-gray

In the gray-pink sand

Of the curving shore,

Waiting.

The moon, pale and wan,

Hangs a flat design in silver
On the expectant sky,
Waiting.

The palm trees, in parallel rows

Along the Plaza, clasp

Nervous, wavering fingers,

Waiting.

Riding on a many-fluted shell

Held on the backs of jade tritons,

Comes Venus Anadyomene, straight and slim,

Combing the night curls

From her ruddy hair,

Blown by the four winds

To the meeting with her lover.

Then, he comes-the young Sun,
Glorious in amazing strength and splendor,
Striding across the mountains

To pave a path of brazen metal
For the whiteness of her feet,

The two little feet of his bride.

He surrounds, covers, hides her
In golden madness.

The sea roughens,

Sending her waves with the morning breeze Against the shore.

It is day!

THE POMEGRANATE BUSH

When she was alive

She moved like a frail ghost,

The spirit of a wraith.

Her chiffons trailed about her

Like spirals of smoke.

The wail in her voice was gray and pining

Like the sea after twilight.

She died and was buried.

Now, she has returned-a woman

Among us.

She passed down the street

Wrapped in a Spanish shawl,
Flaming with hybiscus

And amber roses:

The silk fringe caught in a small, green bush;

She stooped and swayed,

With long pointed fingers disengaged

The silk fringe of the shawl.

THE SAND DUNES

There I know blue, blue water,

And a waving line of land,

With pines that grow in a wind-swept row
As set by a dreamer's hand;

And where the winds will, in hollow or hill,
Sand and sand and sand.

Sand as soft as a snowfall—
Drifting, eddying, whirled-
Sweeping into the valleys,

Over the grasses swirled,
And billowing up to the tree-tops
That look out on the world.

Sand of romantic patterns

New for each passer fleet.

Here a flower has lain, there the leaf-like chain.
That was marked by a sea-gull's feet;

And the pebbled trace as of scalloped lace
Where the waves and the shore-line meet.

Gleaming sands in the morning

When the little waves run white,
While gay wings fan the shining span
And float a song in flight;

And the lupine blue spreads a heaven new
Where the stars might rest till night.